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Today, astronomers have numerous extrasolar systems to study, but most look very different from our own. Determining how these solar systems — and ours — formed is challenging. New research presented at the 233rd Meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle, Washington, on January 8 lends credence to an idea that goes against previous thoughts about planet formation, but has been gaining traction in the field...

One day in the distant future, a team of intrepid humans might board a starship and set out for a world beyond our solar system — maybe one of the exoplanets of Alpha Centauri, the nearby star system. One place we'll never set foot on is Kelt-9b. In addition to being a gas giant without a solid surface, Kelt-9b lies hundreds of light-years away and is the hottest planet ever observed. Temperatures on its outer layer can exceed 4,000 degrees Celsius (7,000 degrees Fahrenheit) — hotter than some stars — and a new study shows that its superheated atmosphere contains vaporized heavy metals.

Astronomers know our solar system better than any other, but they're still learning new ways in which it doesn't seem to be particularly normal. One such quirk, in patterns of planetary sizes, was the subject of a news conference held yesterday (Jan. 8) at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society. The results could prompt scientists to revise a leading theory of how planets form.

The next generation exoplanet hunter is coming into its own. NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, has already found eight confirmed planets in its first four months of observing — and some are unlike anything astronomers have seen before. “The torrent of data is starting to flow already,” TESS principal investigator George Ricker of MIT said January 7 in a news conference at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

Astronomers have discovered a planet twice the size of Earth, and it's within a zone that could allow liquid water to exist on its surface. The finding comes from data from NASA's Kepler space telescope, which ran out of fuel in October 2018. K2-288Bb, as the new planet is called, is located within its star's habitable zone, which is why liquid water is a possibility.

How did we get here? How do stars and planets come into being? What happens during a star's life, and what fate will its planets meet when it dies? Come along on this interstellar journey through time and scientific detective work.

It’s been a big year for Uranus. We’ve learned quite a bit about the planet thanks to new research efforts aimed at explaining why it behaves dramatically different when compared to the other planets in our system. Back in July we learned that the planet’s bizarre rotation — it spins at a nearly 90-degree angle to our Solar System’s other worlds — was likely caused by some kind of incredible impact a long time ago. Now, a new study out of the UK is supporting the collision theory and provides a video of just how such a crash might have looked.

Voyager 2 visited the ice giants in the 1980s, the only craft ever to do so. Planetary scientists argue that new missions to each planet would also benefit heliophysics and exoplanet research. Launching a small orbiter with an accompanying atmospheric probe to the solar system’s ice giants—Uranus and Neptune—should be a top priority for NASA in the coming decade, say planetary scientists who conducted a review of potential missions to do so. Beyond being scientifically valuable, such a mission to each planet is technologically feasible, the team said.

Students at Exeter University have successfully demonstrated that genetically engineered bacteria could help to create breathable air on Mars when combined with perchlorate salts. Students from Exeter University have suggested that genetically engineered bacteria has the possibility to completely transform Mars and create a habitable planet that has breathable air after new research conducted in a lab showed that salts that can be retrieved from Martian soil could help to fuel this process.

When the first humans go to Mars, they may want to bring lichens with them. Because lichens are mini-ecosystems made of both fungi and algae or bacteria, they are particularly good at surviving the extreme conditions on Mars, and could even be used to produce rocket fuel in space.

Put on your friendliest face and say hello to the newest member of our planetary neighborhood: Barnard’s star b. An international team led by researchers from the Carnegie Institution for Science announced today that they’ve detected an exoplanet orbiting Barnard’s star, the closest single star to Earth at just six light-years away. The astronomers calculate the newfound world, dubbed Barnard’s star b, to be about 3.2 times the mass of Earth and to orbit its host star once every 233 days.

Have you ever wondered why every planet we know about is shaped like a sphere? Why not a cube, or an hourglass? While those—and let's be honest, most other shapes—would definitely break the laws of physics, there's one odd planet form that wouldn't: a donut.

What creates the colors in Jupiter's clouds? No one is sure. The thick atmosphere of Jupiter is mostly hydrogen and helium, elements which are colorless at the low temperatures of the Jovian cloud tops. Which trace elements provide the colors remains a topic of research, although small amounts of ammonium hydrosulfide are one leading candidate. What is clear from the featured color-enhanced image -- and many similar images -- is that lighter clouds are typically higher up than darker ones. Pictured, light clouds swirl around reddish regions toward the lower right, while they appear to cover over some darker domains on the upper right.

ESA’s Mars Express has imaged an intriguing part of the Red Planet’s surface: a rocky, fragmented, furrowed escarpment lying at the boundary of the northern and southern hemisphere. This region is an impressive example of past activity on the planet and shows signs of where flowing wind, water and ice once moved material from place to place, carving out distinctive patterns and landforms as it did so.

An international team of researchers, including Jessica Spake and Dr David Sing from the University of Exeter, have detected the inert gas escaping from the atmosphere of the exoplanet HAT-P-11b – found 124 light years from Earth and in the Cygnus constellation.

Over the past three decades of global warming, the oldest and thickest ice in the Arctic has declined by a stunning 95 percent, according the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s annual Arctic Report Card. The finding suggests that the sea at the top of the world has already morphed into a new and very different state, with major implications not only for creatures such as walruses...

The speed and distance at which planets orbit their respective blazing stars can determine each planet's fate—whether the planet remains a longstanding part of its solar system or evaporates into the universe's dark graveyard more quickly.

Over the last 30 years, scientists have discovered thousands of new planets. But one of the big questions that remains—especially for those hunting for alien life—is whether those planets and their atmospheres could support life. Ground- and space-based telescopes can tell us the basics of each planet's specific cocktail of gasses that form its atmosphere, but to get a closer look, scientists are using sophisticated tools to simulate faraway planets in their earthbound labs.

The stunning Korolev crater in the northern lowlands of Mars is filled with ice all year round owing to a trapped layer of cold Martian air that keeps the water frozen. The 50-mile-wide crater contains 530 cubic miles of water ice, as much as Great Bear Lake in northern Canada, and in the centre of the crater the ice is more than a mile thick.

Using observations from ESA’s Venus Express satellite, scientists have shown for the first time how weather patterns seen in Venus’ thick cloud layers are directly linked to the topography of the surface below. Rather than acting as a barrier to our observations, Venus’ clouds may offer insight into what lies beneath.

Research by Rice University Earth scientists suggests that virtually all of Earth's life-giving carbon could have come from a collision about 4.4 billion years ago between Earth and an embryonic planet similar to Mercury.

For decades scientists have speculated that rising global temperatures might alter the ability of soils to store carbon, potentially releasing huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and triggering runaway climate change. Yet thousands of studies worldwide have produced mixed signals on whether this storage capacity will actually decrease—or even increase—as the planet warms.

The magma stream should help geophysicists predict more accurately if and when the magnetic field of the planet’s core will flip, and the magnetic north and south poles trade places, which happens every few thousand years. By Andy Coghlan.

Mars is currently inhabited by an estimated 1 million microbes. They coat the surfaces and crowd the innards of our robotic landers… How to terraform a room-temperature Mars in 100 years. By Christopher P. McKay.